Poking in the Mist - On COVID 19, Climate Change and other examples of ignored threats

Poking in the Mist
On COVID 19, Climate Change and other examples
of ignored threats
Joost Platje | WSB University in Wrocław
Markus Will | University of Applied Sciences Zittau/Görlitz
ISINI 2020 – in the honour of Andries Nentjes, Online Conference, 23-25
September 2020

Poking in the Mist
Welcome to the Risk Management Zoo!
International Society for the Intercommunication of New Ideas | ISINI 2020 – Online Conference - 23-25 September 2020 | Keynote | Joost Platje (WSB Wroclaw) & Markus Will (HSZG) 2
The White Shark
We are afraid of the wrong
thing...
Risks are individual or
collective constructs
Risks are often considered to
be high and, objectively
speaking, very low (i.e. they
occur very rarely)
The Black Swan
We are blind for black
swans…
Statistical “fat tail”
distributions
With low probability and high
impact events are not dealt
with
The Inductivist Turkey
We draw conclusions about
the future from historical
data…
The extrapolation of historical
data and observations leads to
a false security;
naïve inductivism

Poking in the Mist
Global Catastrophic & Existential Risk
(Bostrom, 2001; Ord, 2020; Casti, 2012)
• Natural Risks:
asteroids & comets, supervulcanic eruptions,
stellar explosions, …
• Anthropogenic Risks:
nuclear weapons, (runaway) climate change,
environmental damage, …
• Future Risks:
Pandemics, unaligned artifical intelligence
Global catastrophic risk: a hypothetical future event which
could damage human well-being on a global scale, even
endangering or destroying modern civilization.
Existential Risk: An event that could cause human extinction
or permanently and drastically curtail humanity's potential

Poking in the Mist
Global Catastrophic & Existential Risk
(Bostrom, 2001)
Bangs: Earth-originating intelligent life goes extinct in relatively sudden disaster
resulting from either an accident or a deliberate act of destruction
Deliberate and accidental use of nanotech, nuclear holocaust, “The Matrix”-Simulation,
badly programmed AI, genetically modified biological agent, physical disasters, naturally
occurring disease, runaway global warming, asteroid/comet impact, something “catch-all”
unforeseen
Crunches: The potential of humankind to develop into posthumanity is permanently thwarted
although human life continues in some form.
Resource depletion, ecological destructions, misguided governance stops technological
progress, something “catch-all” unforeseen
Shrieks: Some form of posthumanity is attained but it is an extremely narrow band of what is
possible and desirable.
Take-over by a transcending upload, flawed superintelligence, repressive totalitarian
global regime, something “catch-all” unforeseen
Whimpers: A posthuman civilization arises but evolves in a direction that leads gradually but
irrevocably to either the complete disappearance of the things we value or to a state
where those things are realized to only a minuscule degree of what could have been
achieved
Human potentials and core values are eroded by evolutionary development, humanity gets
killed by an extra-terrestrial civilization, something “catch-all” unforeseen

Poking in the Mist
New fellows in the Zoo…
Unknown Unknowns
“Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we
know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know.
We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not
know.
But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don't know we don't know. And if one looks
throughout the history of our country and other free countries, it is the latter category that tend to
be the difficult ones.”
Donald Rumsfeld at
U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) news briefing on February 12, 2002
about the lack of evidence linking the government of Iraq with the supply of weapons of mass destruction to terrorist groups

Poking in the Mist
New fellows in the Zoo…
(Will 2020, Van Dam/Wbbink 2020, Platje et al. 2020)
The Wicked Black Elephant
• The “Elephant in the Room”:
an obvious problem, which is not addressed but ignored
unseen evidence from Early Warning Systems
• Conscious ignorance, “buying-into collateral damage” based on
CBA
(systemically embedded in the neo-liberal capitalist economic system)
• Wickedness: messy problem, without “right or wrong” solutions,
trial-and-error at high cost, everyone can define one’s favorite
solution,…
• Example:
Pandemics as foreseen but ignored risk, and as a wicked problem, early
warning & emergency response plans are there, but considered only late

Poking in the Mist
Intermediate conclusion
(Bostrom, 2001)
• We are bad in taking Black Swans into account; we don‘t take them seriously
• We are bad in considering a „credidble worst case“
• Approaches like „Trial-and-error“ and „wait-and-see“-reactive approach will not work
• Foresight and preventive action is suggested
• Reduction of existential risks is a common good and undersupplied by the market
• We are bad in taking Black Swans into account; we don‘t take them seriously
• We are bad in considering a „credidble worst case“
• Approaches like „Trial-and-error“ and „wait-and-see“-reactive approach will not work
• Foresight and preventive action is suggested
• Reduction of existential risks is a common good and undersupplied by the market

Poking in the Mist
Normal Accidents
(Perrow 1984, Perrow 1994)
• Systems theory approach based on organizational sociology
• Key Points:
• Complex and closely coupled systems inevitably lead to accidents
• The more complex the effects between system components, the more "normal"
or unavoidable disasters become
• “Normal accident" is not a statement of frequency, but a description of immanent system characteristics
• Accidents are predetermined by organisational structures!
• Meaning:
• For (risk) management, this means that disturbances are virtually inevitable.
Hence the determination of probabilities, which is a standard procedure in conventional risk management
seems unnecessary.

Poking in the Mist
Shifting Baselines
(Bolster, 2012; Papworth et al., 2009;
Soga and Gaston, 2018)
• A type of change in a system which is measured
against a previous reference point (baselines),
which itself may represent significant changes
from an even earlier state of the system
• Imperceptible shifts in human thinking
from generation to generation:
we do not notice changes in their full extent,
but mostly only in very small ways,
and especially when they affect ourselves.
• Fisheries - the "calibration" of the perception of
each new generation of fishermen
Often the reference point relates on the quantities
of fish perceived in the youth –
the actual over-generational decline
of fish stocks is not perceived
Winslow_Homer_-_The_Fog_Warning

Poking in the Mist
Dance on the Vulcano
(Kuckartz 2010)
• Ignoring the warnings:
„Nicht hier, nicht jetzt, nicht ich“ – „Not here, not now, not me”
• Discrepancy in Near-far perception:
Climate change impacts in Germany are not that serious,
Extreme effects are only to be feared elsewhere
• Right now, other things have priority,
e.g. recovery of global economy without regard
to socio-ecological aspects
• Why me? Let's start with the others.
As long as other people or nations are reluctant
to take serious (climate) action, why should we do?
• Preference for immediate
(or short-term) realisation of
individual benefit
Photo by Valérie Le Bouteiller on Unsplash

Poking in the Mist
Conclusions?
• Are Black Swans a human invention, to cover ignornance of early warning signals (e.g. Fukushima,
Financial Crisis 2007-2008)?
• As random events cannot be dealt with in risk management, and peoples’ Focus on short-term cost and benefits?
• As people cannot handle statistics and complexity?
• Are Homo Sapiens turkey-impersonators, dancing in the mist on a volcano full of Black Swans, Black
Elephants, White Sharks and a range of undiscovered species?
• While Human expansion leads to extinction of the species (see Glaubrecht - „Das Ende der Evolution“),
what kind of species we will add to the Risk Management Zoo ?
• ….
• …

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